Summer at Willow Lake (20 page)

Finally, just before blisters started to form on Daisy’s hand, Dad declared that they had arrived. She had to allow that it was beautiful here. The deep fishing hole was bound by a sheer wall of rock plunging into the water. Here, the lake was as still as a sheet of glass.

“Now what?” asked Max.

“Now we bait our hooks and hope for the best. Grab that can of worms, will you, Daisy?”

“I wouldn’t touch that can of worms with a barge pole,” she said.

“Chicken.” Max clambered toward her, jostling the canoe.

“Careful, numb nuts,” she said, bracing her hands on the sides.

To her surprise, Max showed a bit of grace as he grabbed the can and passed it to their dad. In just a few minutes, their hooks were baited—by Dad, who somehow appeared to know what he was doing—and their lines were cast.

And then…nothing. The three of them sat like dunces, staring at their bobbers, watching for a bite. Every once in a while, Dad would reel in a line and put a fresh worm on the hook, as if the trout would turn up their noses at a dead, bloated worm. Once in a while, a bobber would stir, dipping a little. When that happened, one of them would reel it in with wild excitement, only to discover that the bait had been stolen from the hook.

“Clever little devils,” Dad said.

“What, the trout?” asked Daisy. “Since when is a trout clever?”

“Since it can steal a worm without swallowing the hook,” Max explained reasonably. “I’d call that clever. Wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, real clever.”

By the end of the first hour, boredom gave way to silliness. The three of them played verbal games, dumb stuff she remembered from when she was really little, like “I Spy” and “Who Am I?” The sound of Max’s giggles trilled like birdsong across the water, and Daisy felt something strange and unexpected come over her. A sense of relaxation, of…peace.

A bit later, Dad started to tell stories. He talked about the old days when he was a boy, and what it had been like spending every single summer of his childhood here. “It was the only life I knew,” he said, “and I didn’t realize how great it was. Kids never do.”

Yeah, but they notice if their life is in the toilet, she thought.

Max got hungry and unwrapped a sandwich.” My favorite.”

“You didn’t,” Daisy said.

Dad shrugged. “It’s his favorite.”

A blissful look came over Max’s face as he ate the disgusting baloney-and-peanut-butter sandwich. “Tell us about the time Uncle Philip put catfish bait in the girls’ bunkhouse,” he said, although he knew the story by heart.

The minutes slipped by as they listened to their dad tell stories. Max idly picked off the crust and dropped the pieces over the side. Daisy watched as a fat trout swam up and sucked the peanut-buttered bread crust from the surface. She watched like an idiot as another fish came, and then another….

“Hand me the net,” she said in an urgent whisper.

“Do you have a bite?” Max asked.

“No, you do. Look in the water. They’re coming for your sandwich.”

His eyes grew comically wide. “Dad, look.”

Daisy grabbed the net. She held it above the two fish feeding on the discarded, soggy bits of sandwich. All she had to do was reach down and scoop them into the net.

“Go for it, Daisy,” Max whispered. “Come on, you can do it.”

As quickly as she could, she dipped the net beneath the surface. The fish darted away.

“Dang it,” she said, plopping down heavily in the canoe. “That’s the closest I’ve had to any action at all.”

“Look,” Max said, tossing in another bit of his sandwich. “They’re back. Three of them now.”

Daisy didn’t hesitate. She scooped again with the net. “I got one! Daddy, look! I caught a fish,” she said. Its silvery body writhed and flopped inside the net.

“Fantastic, Daisy,” he said. “Good for you. Now, let’s get it in the creel here….”

“A trout! Daisy caught a trout!” Max bobbed up and down with excitement.

“Take it easy, buddy,” their dad cautioned him. “You don’t want to capsize the—”

“Dad!” Daisy’s trout somehow managed to flip itself out of the net. She lunged to recapture it.

Which was, of course, her fatal error. She felt the canoe lurch to one side, and was powerless to stop its momentum. She went in headfirst, arms pinwheeling. The shock of the cold water, and the buoyant life vest, propelled her instantly to the surface, a scream of outrage on her lips.

But she didn’t scream. She surfaced in time to see Max flailing, and their dad reaching for him in midair. They both went in, sending up a fountain of lake water, creating a temporary rainbow as the sunlight shot through it.

“Holy shit,” Dad said. “Holy shit, this water’s cold.”

“You said shit,” Max pointed out, his lips already blue.

“Twice,” Dad reminded him. “I said
holy
shit.” He swam over to the canoe and rescued the net, the bundle of soggy towels and two of the paddles that were floating in the lake. There was water in the bottom of the boat, but it was in no danger of sinking.

Max leaned his head back against the collar of his life vest and looked up at the sky. “It’s f-f-freezing!” he said, laughing and spinning in a circle. “Freezing!
Now
my nuts are numb.”

Daisy was shivering, but as she swam off in pursuit of her stray flip-flops, she found herself enjoying the weightless sensation of floating. If she kept moving, the water didn’t feel so cold. She played a game of water tag with her dad and brother, and they ducked each other under, yelling and laughing and no doubt scaring away every last fish in the lake for good. After a while, Max’s teeth started chattering so much he couldn’t talk, so they decided to head back.

Easier said than done, that was for sure. They couldn’t get in the boat. She and her dad managed to hoist Max up and over the side, but then they couldn’t get in without tipping it over again. It was crazy, and pretty soon they were laughing so hard that her arms felt like jelly, completely useless. They gave up and swam the boat to the nearest shore, a thick wilderness of birch trees and tall grass. By then, all three of them were shivering.

“I’ll make a fire,” Dad said. “We can warm up a little, then paddle back.”

“Right, a fire,” Daisy said. “With what?”

Their dad surprised them. Amazed them, actually. Who knew he was able to make a fire starter with a shoelace, two short branches and some dry grass? Somehow, he rigged the apparatus so that a quick tug on the string would drill in the point of the branch fast enough to create sparks. After a bunch of tries, the dry grass caught and they gently blew on the little nest of fire to coax a real flame from it. Finally, with careful tending, they had a perfect little campfire right there at the lakeshore. The heat felt delicious, and they managed to salvage a bag of Fritos and some grapes from the picnic, and they had a small feast. Eventually, they warmed up and dried out sufficiently to paddle back to camp.

By the time they arrived, all three of them drunk from exhaustion and from singing endless, made-up verses of “The Bear Went Over the Mountain,” Daisy felt cleansed by the lake water, her skin tingling with a slight sunburn.

After they tied up the canoe and brought in all their soggy gear, Olivia came to greet them. “Any luck?” she asked.

Daisy, Max and Dad looked at each other, and then burst out laughing.

That night, Max practically fell asleep in his macaroni and cheese, and Dad carried him off to bed. Daisy ducked into the library of the main building, a cozy room with built-in benches and reading nooks and rustic twig furniture. The shelves were crammed with every sort of book—novels with funny names like
The Egg and I,
and nature guides and what appeared to be every Dr. Seuss book ever written. She grabbed a book and went after her dad and brother.

The cabin was messy, and they were already in bed, crammed into a bunk together. She got in next to Max and handed their dad a book. “We should start with something short,” she said.

Dad clicked on the lamp and opened
Horton Hatches the Egg,
reading with such hilarious drama that Daisy hung around to hear him. “‘I meant what I said and I said what I meant,’” Dad read in a voice of ponderous gravity, “‘an elephant’s faithful one hundred percent.’”

Thirteen

“S
o what’s up with you and Olivia?” Connor asked Freddy Delgado. He figured he needed to ask, and now was probably a good time. They were rebuilding the gazebo and so far had managed to work together without killing each other.

There was something between Freddy and Olivia, but Connor couldn’t put his finger on what. Ever since he’d pulled her into his arms and nearly kissed her, nothing further had happened. Did he want something to happen? Well, besides the obvious. He didn’t know, he honestly didn’t. He sure as hell wanted to kiss her, that was for sure.

As for Olivia, she was either avoiding him, or was genuinely too busy.

Freddy measured a four-by-four and marked it off with a flat carpenter’s pencil. “What’s
up
with us?”

“That’s what I asked.” Connor spoke around a mouthful of nails.

“Why do you want to know?” His face was pinched with suspicion as he set down his pencil. He went over to the big red-and-white cooler and pulled out two bottles.

“Wondering if the two of you are involved, because if you are, I respect that.”

“And if we’re not?” Freddy asked, handing him a bottle.

“Then that opens up my options.” It was city-boy water in a cobalt blue teardrop-shaped bottle. He took a big gulp, then grimaced, not expecting the sharp carbonation. “What is this piss?”

“Tynant, from a spring in Wales,” Freddy said, as if any fool should know. “Look, all you need to know about Olivia and me is that she’s the best friend I’ve ever had. She’s taken some hard knocks, which makes me feel like shit, because I should be able to protect her from that.”

“What kind of hard knocks?” Connor asked.

Freddy glowered a warning. “The kind I can’t protect her from.”

Olivia stood on the deck of the main lodge, staring out at the lake island and watching Connor Davis work on the gazebo. She had a dozen things to do this afternoon, but she couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. The kiss that wasn’t. The almost-kiss that Freddy had interrupted and that Connor had not bothered to reprise, even though she’d given him plenty of opportunities. Clearly he regretted making that move. She didn’t blame him. When she’d dragged him to the place where his father had lived, he probably thought she’d done it to torture him. Even so, she could still hear the question he’d asked her.
Do you ever think about us, Lolly?

“Not any more than I think about anything else from nine years ago,”
she’d replied. It was such a huge lie, the words had probably stained her teeth.

“What do you suppose they’re talking about?” Dare asked, joining Olivia. “They actually seem to be having a conversation for a change rather than arguing.”

“Who knows? At least Nana’s gazebo is going up,” Olivia said.

They decided to paddle out to the island with lunch in a cooler. Dare made the most incredible picnic lunches. Sandwiches, white grapes, mocha brownies, lemonade. She did everything with a peculiar elegance, a trait she seemed to have been born with. The camp kitchen had an abundance of picnic baskets, and she used a classic wicker one with a liner of checkered cloth. They arrived at the work site just in time to see Freddy peel off his shirt. Dare emitted a little whimper of yearning.

“He probably saw us coming and did that on purpose,” Olivia said, well acquainted with Freddy’s vanity. What he lacked in height, he made up for in physical fitness, his arms and abs carefully sculpted by a daily routine involving an obscene number of push-ups.

As they glided closer, Freddy wiped his chest and underarms with the shirt.

“Well, maybe not,” Olivia amended, watching in disgust.

He shook out the shirt and then hung it from the branch of a tree.

“Definitely not,” said Dare.

Olivia regarded her cousin thoughtfully. Dare seemed quite taken with Freddy. She was about to mention it when Connor came into view, a stack of boards balanced on his shoulder.

Her own whimper of yearning was not so little.

Dare tossed a line around a cleat on the dock. “So you’re still into him after all these years? After what he did to you?” she asked.

“I’m a different person now. I always wish I’d handled things differently that summer,” she said.

“Well, here’s your chance for a do-over. Not many people get that.”

Freddy spotted them coming along the dock. When he saw Dare’s picnic basket, he clutched his heart and said, “I think I’m in love.”

“A man of simple needs, then,” she observed.

“Simple and few. A hearty meal and a willing woman. That’s pretty much it.”

“Then today is your lucky day. Go wash your hands and put your shirt back on.”

Olivia felt Connor’s eyes on her as she watched her cousin flirting with Freddy. She took two cold bottles of lemonade from the cooler and handed him one.

“You’ve gotten a lot done,” she said.

“I’ll show you around. Watch your step.” He held out his hand, palm up, and she flashed on an image of the way he had looked years ago, on the last night she’d seen him, dressed up and asking her to dance. She blinked, and the image went away, and she was whisked back to the present. He was Connor Davis of the here and now, in Levi’s and a T-shirt, a bandanna trailing from his back pocket.

She stared briefly at his hand, wondering if just touching him would cause her to melt. Probably, she thought. She was halfway there already.

She put her hand in his, and it happened exactly the way it had when he’d pulled her into his arms the other day. A peculiar, irresistible warmth flooded through her. It wasn’t something she trusted or particularly wanted, nor was it something she could deny.

He drew her up to the octagonal platform he and Freddy had built, and she tipped back her head, gazing up at the open rafters. “I feel like Cinderella at the ball.”